Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 377, March 1847

Flendo turgiduli rubent ocelli.

Curate. – If we have not, you remember that Juvenal has, and hit those eyes rather hard, considering whose they are. He, however, only meant the hit for Catullus:

nec tibi, cujus

Turbavit nitidos extinctus passer ocellos.

Gratian. —Turbavit is “mitigated wo” again:

Unlike the Lesbias of our modern years,Who for a sparrow’s death dissolve in tears.

Aquilius. – Satire is like a flail, an ugly weapon in a crowd, and hits more than it aims at. I won’t allow the blow to be a true hit on Catullus. But let us pass on; there is a vessel waiting for us, though we should be loth to trust to her sheathing, no longer sea-worthy. Our poet now addresses his yacht. Are there many of the “Club” who would write better verses on theirs?

de phaselo, quo in patriam revectus estThis bark that now, my friends, you see,Asserts she once was far more swiftThan other craft, whate’er the treeMight ply the oar or sailyard shift,She passed them all on every sea.She asked the Cyclad Isles to say —Can they deny – rough Adria’s shore,Proud Rhodes, and every land that layWhere savage Thracia’s tempests roar —She asked her native Pontic bay —Where first her leafy crown was stirredBy winds that swept Cytorian rocks.(Through rustling leaves her voice was heard.)And you, Cytorus, crowned with box,And you, Amastris, hear the word.For all, she says, was known to you,And still is known. For on your topShe first took root and proudly grew,Till severed trunk and branches drop,And keel and oars thy waves embue.How oft she bore, when winds were light,Her master over sea and strait,Stemmed currents strong, and tacked to rightOr left, and bravely held the weightOf breeze that strained her canvass tight.Nor was there need for her to makeOr costly vows, or incense burn;Or sea-shore gods her guides to takeOn her last voyage, last return,From sea-ward to this limpid lake.Now all is o’er – grown old, in restShe waits decay – with homage due,And grateful thought, and prayer addressed,She dedicates herself to you,Twin stars, twin gods, twin brothers blest.

Gratian. – Ah! well done, poor old timber-toe – laid up at last – no “mutile lignum,” that’s clear enough. I hope she had a soft berth, and lay evenly in it. It is quite uncomfortable to see a poor thing, though it be little more than decayed ribs, with hard rock piercing them here and there, and the creature labouring still to keep the life in and weather out of her unsupported sides and bottom, and looking piteously to be moved off those jutting points that pin her down in pain, as boys serve a cock-chafer. He is a hard man that does not animate inanimate things. He is out of nature’s kin. All sailors love their ships, and they are glorious. Catullus is more to my humour here than in his love-lines on Lesbia. She could get another lover, and if truth be told, and that by Catullus himself, did; but his poor boat! If captured and taken to the slave-market, she would not find a bidder. Well, well, it is pleasanter to see her laid up high and dry, with now and then her master’s and owner’s affectionate eye upon her, than to look at the broom at her mast head. Catullus knew the wood she came from, and how it grew – it had vitality, and he never can believe it quite gone.

Aquilius. – There is a poem by Turner on this subject.

Gratian. – By Turner? – what Turner? – You don’t mean, “The Fallacies of Hope” Turner?

Aquilius. – The same – but I should be sorry indeed, to see a vessel built after the measure of his verses. She would require too nice an adjustment of ballast. I doubt if she would bear a rough sea. The poem I speak of was written with his palette’s pen. It was the towing in the old Temeraire to be broken up. There she was, on the waters, as her own element, a Leviathan still, a history of “battle and of breeze” – behind her the night coming in, sun setting, and in glory too. Her days are over, and she is towed in to her last anchorage. The feeling of the picture was touching, and there was a dignity and greatness in it of mighty charm.

Gratian. – I remember it well, and it is well remembered now: but here is the Curate with his paper in his hand: let us hear what he has to say.

Curate. – I have the worse chance with you, for you have poeticised the subject so much more largely than Catullus himself, that you will listen with less pleasure to my translation; but you shall have it.

dedicatio phaseli

Strangers, the bark you see, doth say

Of ships the fleetest far was she.

Aquilius. – Stay for a moment: “the fleetest,” then she was one of a fleet, and sailed perhaps under convoy, and ought not to have outsailed the fleet– say quickest.

Gratian. – No interruption, or by this baculus! Go on, Mr. Curate.

Curate. – If you please, I’ll heave anchor again.

Strangers, this bark you see doth say,Of ships the fleetest far was she:And that she passed and flew awayFrom every hull that ploughed the sea,That fought against, or used the galeWith hand-like oar or wing-like sail.She cites, as witness to her word,The frowning Adriatic strand;The Cyclades which rocks engird,And noted Rhodus’ distant land;Propontis and unkindly Thrace,And Savage Pontus’ billowy race.That which is now a shallop here,Was once a tract of tressed wood,Its foliage was Cytorus’ gear,Upon the topmost ridge it stood,And when the morning breeze awokeIts whistling leaves the silence broke.Pontic Amastris, says the bark,Box-overgrown Cytorus, youKnow me by each familiar mark,And testify the tale is true.She says you saw her earliest birthUpon your nursing mountain-earth,She dipped her blades, a maiden launch,First in your waves, and bent her courseThence, ever to her master staunch,Through seas that plied their utmost force.If right or left the breeze did strike,Or gentle Jove did strain alike,Each sheet before the wind. She cameFrom that remotest ocean-spotTo this clear inlet, still the same,And yet audaciously forgotThe bribes which, under doubtful skies,Are vowed to sea-side deities.Her deeds are done, her tale is told,For those were feats of bygone strength;In secret peace she now grows old,And dedicates herself at length,Twin-brother Castor, at thy shrine,And Castor’s brother twin, at thine.

Gratian. – Hand me the book. I thought so – that “audaciously forgot” is your audacious interpolation. She does not forget her vows, for she never made any. You bring her back, good Master Curate, not a little in the sulks, like a runaway wife, that had forgotten her vows, and remembered all her audacity. We see her reluctantly taken in tow – looking like a profligate, weary, and voyage worn, buffeted and beaten by more storms than she likes to tell of. You must alter audaciously.

Aquilius. – And I object to bribes; it is a satire upon the underwriters.

Curate. – The underwriters?

Aquilius. – Yes, the “Littoralibus Diis;” what were they but an insurance company, with their chief temple, some Roman “Lloyd’s,” and offices in every sea-port?

Curate. – Or perhaps the “Littoralibus Diis,” referred to a “coast-guard.”

Gratian. – Worse and worse, for that would imply that they took bribes, and that she was an old smuggler. Keep to the original, and if you will modernize Catullus, you must merely say, she was so safe a boat that the owner did not think it worth while to insure.

Curate. – The learned themselves dispute as to the identity of the “Dii Littorales.” In the notes, I find they are said to be Glaucus, Nereus, Melicerta, Neptune, Thetis, and others; but in the notes to Statius, you will find Gevartius bids the aforesaid learned tell that to the marines. He knows better. I remember his words, – “Sed male illi marinos et littorales deos confundunt. Littorales enim potissimum Dii Cælestes erant, Pallas, Apollo, Hercules, &c., unde illi potius apud Catullum sunt intelligendi.”

Gratian. – She might have been doubly insured; for besides Glaucus, Neptune, Thetis, and Co., there was the company registered by Gevartius.

Curate. – I have looked again at the passage, and think I have not quite given the meaning of “novissimo.” I doubt if it does mean remote – it more likely means the last voyage – so let me substitute this: —

She came,’Twas her last voyage, from far sea,To this clear inlet-home, the sameGood bark and true, and proudly freeFrom vows which under doubtful skies,Are made to sea-side Deities.

Gratian. —Probatum est.– We have, however, run the vessel down. Let me see what comes next. Oh, “To Lesbia.” This is the old well-known deliciously elegant little piece that I remember we were wont to try our luck with in our youth; and many a translation of it may yet be found among half-forgotten trifles. We are, some of us, it is true, a little out of this cherry-season of kissing – there is a time for all things, and so there was a time for that. It is pleasant still to trifle with the subject: even the wise Socrates played with it in one of his dialogues, and so may we, innocently enough. Though there be some greybeards, (no, I am wrong, they are not greybeards, but grave-airs, and they, more shame to them, with scarcely a beard at all,) that would open the book here, and shut it again in haste, and look as if they had just come out of the cave of Trophonius. That is not a healthy and honest purity.

Aquilius. – But these do not object to a little professional kissing.

Gratian. – More shame to them – that is the worst of all, but pass on; here is nothing but a little harmless play. Yet I don’t see why the young poet, (you know he died at thirty,) should mock his elders in “rumoresque senum severiorum,” these “sayings of severe old men.” Why should old men be severe? O’ my conscience, I believe they are far less severe than the young. Had I been present when the poet indited this to his Lesbia, I might just have ventured to hint to him thus: – “My dear friend, you have had enough, perhaps too much of kissing; my advice is, that you keep it to yourself, and tell it to no one; and don’t despise the words of us old men, and mine are words of advice, that if not married already, after all this kissing, you take her, your Lesbia, to wife, as soon as you conveniently can.”

This was pronounced with an amusingly affected gravity. I and the Curate assumed the submissive. We were, as I told you, Eusebius, sitting under the verandah, and very near the breakfast room; the window of which (down to the ground) was open. While our good old friend and host was thus Socratically lecturing, I saw a ribbon catch the air, and float out towards us a little from the window – then appeared half a bonnet, inclined on one side, and downwards, as of one endeavouring to catch sounds more clearly. Seeing that it continued in this position, as soon as my friend had uttered the last words, I walked hastily towards the room, and saw the no very prepossessing countenance of a lady, whose privilege it is to be called young. She blushed, or rather reddened, and boldly came forward, and addressed our friend, – that she had come to see some of the family on a little business for the “visiting and other societies,” and seeing us so enjoying ourselves out of doors, she could not but come forward to pay her respects, adding, with a look at the Curate, whom she evidently thought to be under reproof, that she hoped she had not arrived mal-apropos. Our friend introduced her thus, – Ah, my dear Miss Lydia Prate-apace, is that you? – glad to see you. But (retaining his assumed gravity,) you are not safe here: there has been too much kissing, and too much talk about it, for one of your known rectitude to hear. Dear me, said she, you don’t say so: then I shall bid good-day; and with an inquisitive look at me, and an awful one at the Curate, she very nimbly tripped off. You will be sure to hear of that again, said I to the Curate. He laughed incredulous, in his innocency. Not unlikely, upon my word, said Gratian; for I see them there trotting down the church-path, Lydia Prate-apace, and her friend Clarissa Gadabout; so look to yourself, Mr. Curate. But we have had enough for the present. I must just take a look at my mangel, and my orchard, which you must know is my piggery. Good-bye for the present. In the evening we meet again in the library, and let Catullus be of our company. It was time to change our quarters; for the little spaniel, knowing the hour his master would visit his stock, and intending as usual to accompany him, just then ran in to us, and jumping about and barking, gave us no rest for further discussion.

You must now, my dear Eusebius, behold us in the library as before – G. reads, —

“Vivamus, mea Lesbia, atque amemus,

Rumoresque senum severiorum.”

Ah, that’s where we were; I remember we did not like the senum severiorum.

Curate. – We!!

G. – Yes, we; for the veriest youth that shoots an arrow at old age, is but shooting at himself some ten or a dozen paces off. I remember, when a boy, being pleased with a translation of this by Langhorne; but I only remember two stanzas, and cannot but think he left out the “soles occidere et redire possunt;” if so, he did wrong; and I opine that he vulgarised and removed all grace from it by the word “pleasure.” Life and love, Catullus means to say, are commensurate; but “pleasure” is a wilful and wanton intrusion. If I remember, his lines are, —

“Lesbia, live to love and pleasure,Careless what the grave may say;When each moment is a treasure,Why should lovers lose a day?Give me then a thousand kisses —Twice ten thousand more bestow;Till the sum of endless blisses,Neither we nor envy know.”

Catullus himself might as well have omitted the “malus invidere.” Why should he trouble his head about the matter – envied or not? but now, Mr. Curate, let us hear your version.

Curate. – Ad LesbiamLove we, live we, Lesbia, provingLove in living, life in loving,For all the saws of sages caringNot one single penny’s paring.Suns can rise again from setting,But our short light,Once sunk in night,Sleeps a slumber all forgetting:Give me then a thousand kisses,Still a hundred little blisses —Yet a thousand – yet five score,Yet a thousand, hundred more.Then, when we have made too manyThousands, we’ll confound them all,So as not to know of anyNumber, either great or small;Or lest some caitiff grudge our blissesWhen he knows the tale of kisses —

Gratian. – Tale is an ambiguous word, “Kiss and tell” is not fair play – Tale, talley, number. I hope it will be so understood at first reading. – It reminds me of the critical controversy respecting a passage in “L’Allegro,” —

“And every shepherd tells his taleUnder the hawthorn in the dale.”

The unsusceptible critic maintained that the shepherd did but count, or take the tale of his sheep. Why not avoid the ambiguity thus – a hasty emendation.

“Knowing our amount of kisses.”

Aquilius. – In the other sense, it will go sadly against him, if Miss Prate-apace should be a listener – she would like to have all the telling to herself.

Gratian. – Doubtless, and matter to tell of too – but, as I suppose that paper in your hand is your translation of this common-property bit of Latin, read it.

Aquilius. – Here it is.

ad lesbiamWe’ll live and love while yet ’tis ours,To live and love, my Lesbia, dearest,And when old greybeard saws thou hearest,(Since joy is but the present hour’s,)We’ll laugh them down as none the clearest.For suns will set again to rise,But our brief day once closed – we slumberLong nights, long days – too long to number; —Perpetual sleep shall close our eyes,And one dark night shall both encumber.A thousand kisses then bestow;Ten thousand more, – ten thousand blisses, —And when we’ve counted million kisses —Begin again, – for, Lesbia, know,We way have made mistakes and misses.Then let our lips the full amountCommingle so, in one delusion,Blending beginning with conclusion,Nor we, nor envy’s self can countHow many in the sweet confusion.

Curate. – I protest against this as a translation. There is addition. Catullus says nothing of “mistakes and misses.”

Aquilius. – I maintain it is implied in “conturbabimus illa:” it shows they had given up all idea of counting correctly.

Gratian. – I think it may pass; but you have a word twice, – “day closed,” and “close our eyes.” Why not have it thus: —

“But our brief day once o’er,” or once pass’d, – yet it is not so good, as “closed.” I see in the note on “conturbabimus,” great stress is laid on the mischievous spell that envy was supposed to convey, like the “evil eye.” This does not make much for Catullus – for a good kiss in real earnest, not your kiss poetical, might bid defiance to every charm but its own.

Curate. – There is something of the same superstition in the piece but one following, “malâ fascinare lingua” alludes evidently to the εὐφημία of the Greeks, – the superstition of the evil eye and evil tongue. The very word invidere seems to have been adopted in its wider sense, from the particular superstition of the evil eye. The Neapolitans of the present day inherit, in full possession, both superstitions.

Gratian. – Nor are either quite out of England; and I can hardly think that a legacy left us by the Romans. There is something akin to the feeling in the dislike old country gossips show to having their likenesses taken. I have known a sketcher pelted for putting in a passing figure. And I have seen a servant girl, in the house of a friend, who, having never, until she came into his service, seen a portrait, could not be prevailed upon, for a long while, to go alone into a room where there were some family portraits. What comes next after all these kisses?

Aquilius. – More kisses.

Gratian. – Then you force a bad pun from me, and put my aching bones into an omni-bus, and it is as much as I can do to bear the shaking. Give your account of them, Aquilius.

Aquilius. – ad lesbiamHow many kisses will suffice,You ask me, Lesbia, – ask a lover!Go bid him count the sands; – discover,Even to a very grain precise,How many lie in heaps, or hover,When gusty winds the sand hills stirAbout the benzoin-bearing plain,Between Jove’s Cyrenean fane,And Battus’ sacred sepulchre.How many stars, in stillest night,On loving thefts look down approving, —So many kisses should requiteCatullus, ah too madly loving. —Ye curious eyes, be closed in slumber,That would be spies upon our wooing,That there be none to note the number,Nor tongue to babble of our doing.

Gratian. – Read that last again – for “my eyes,” I confess, were not as “curious” as they should have been, and were just closing as you came to the wooing.

Aquilius. —

That there be none to note the number,Nor tongue to babble of our doing.

Gratian. – Well, rubbing his eyes, I am quite awake now; let us have your version, Master Curate.

Curate. – ad lesbiamDost bid me, my Lesbia,A number define,To fill me, and glut meWith kisses of thine?When equal thy kissesThe atoms of sand,By spicy CyreneOn Lybia’s strand,The sand grains extendingFrom Ammon’s hot shrine,To the tomb of old Battus,That land-mark divine.Or count me the star-lightsThat see from above,In still night, the thievingsOf mortals in love.Thus canst thou, my Lesbia,A number assign,To glut thy mad loverWith kisses of thine.A number the pryingTo reckon may spare;And gossips, unlucky,Give up in despair.

Gratian. – (After a pause, his eyes half closed,)

“Give up in despair.”

Very mu – si – cal – sooth – ing.

Aquilius. – See, you have set our host asleep; and, judging from his last words, his dream will not be unpleasant. We must not come to a sudden silence, or it will waken him. The murmur of the brook that invites sleep, is pledged to its continuance. The winds and the pattering rain, says the Roman elegiast, assist the sleeper.

Aut gelidas hibernus aquas eum fuderit auster

Securum somnos imbre juvante sequi.

We must not, however, proceed with our translations. Take up Landor’s Pentameron, and begin where you left off, when we first entered upon this discussion of Catullus. He seemed to give the preference to Catullus over Horace. Here is the page, – read on.

The Curate at once took the volume and read aloud. – The following passage arrested our attention: —

“In return for my suggestion, pray tell me what is the meaning of

Obliquo laborat

Lympha fugax trepidare rivo.

“Petrarcha. – The moment I learn it you shall have it. Laborat trepidare! lympha rivo! fugax, too! Fugacity is not the action for hard work or labour.

“Boccaccio. – Since you cannot help me out, I must give up the conjecture, it seems, while it has cost me only half a century. Perhaps it may be curiosa felicitas.”

Aquilius – Stay there: – that criticism is new to me. I never even fancied there was a difficulty in the passage. Let us consider it a moment.

Curate. – Does he then think Horace not very choice in his words? for he seems to be severe upon the “curiosa felicitas.” Surely the diction of the Latin poets is all in all – For their ideas seem hard stereotyped, – uninterchangeable, the very reverse of the Greek, in whom you always find some unexpected turn, some new thought, thrown out beautifully in the rapidity of their conception – excepting in Sophocles – who, attending more to his diction, deals perhaps a little too much in common-place.

The object of the Latin poets should seem to have been to introduce gracefully, into their own language, what the Greeks had left them; and the nature of this labour quenched the fire of originality, if they had any. – It is hard, however, to deny them the fruits of this labour; and who was more happy in it than Horace?

Aquilius. – Surely, and the familiar love that all bear to Horace, confirms your opinion – the general opinion. Now, I cannot but think Horace happy in his choice of words, in this very passage of

obliquo laborat,

Lympha fugax trepidare rivo.

Let me suggest a meaning, which to me is obvious enough, and I am surprised it should have escaped so acute and so profound a critic. Horace supposes his friend enjoying the landscape in remoto gramine, and there describes it accurately; and it is a favourite scene with him, which he often paints in words, with the introduction of the same imagery. Suppose, then, the scene to be in remoto gramine at Tiber, our modern Tivoli; where, as I presume, the water was always, as now, though not in exactly the same way, turned off from the Anio into cut channels; and such I take to be the meaning generally of rivers, a channel, not a river. And the Lympha here is appropriate; not the body of the stream, but a portion of its water. In this case, “obliquo” may express a new direction, and some obstacle in the turn the river takes, where the water would for a moment seem to labour, “laborare fugax,” expressing its desire to escape. May not, therefore, the first evident meaning be allowed to “trepidare,” to tremble, or undulate, showing the motion a rivulet assumes, just after it has turned the angle of its obstruction. “Obliquo,” may, too, mean the slope, such as would be in a garden at Tivoli, on the verge of the precipice. Possibly Horace generally uses “rivus” in this sense, “Puræ rivus aquæ.” – Then, again, describing the character of Tibur or Tivoli, he does not say the Anio; but “aquæ,” as in the other instance “Lympha.”

“Sed quæ Tibur aquæ fertile præfluunt,”

– “fertile,” being the effect of the irrigation, the purpose for which the aquæ are turned from the river; and this agrees well with the word præfluunt, as applied to irrigated gardens. Pliny thus uses the adjective præfluus: “Hortos esse habendos irriguos præfluo amne.” But there is one passage in Horace where this meaning is so distinctly given to rivers, and which is so characteristic of the very scene of Tibur, that to me it is conclusive.

“et uda

Mobilibus pomarea rivis.”

Evidently channels, moveable and diverse at pleasure, for irrigation.

Nor would Horace use Lympha for a river, or be amenable to a charge of such tautology as this: —

“Labuntur altis interim ripis aquæ,Quæruntur in sylvis aves,Fontesque Lymphis obstrepunt manantibus,Somnos quod inortet leves.”

Curate. – I fancy I now see the garden, where somewhat artificial planting had put together the “Pinus ingens albaque Populus,” to consociate, and form the shady arbour, where the wine and unguents are to be brought, and through which the rivus passes angularly, and doubtless with a view to the garden-beauty. It is a sketch from nature of some particular and favourite spot.